WORDS Said In My HEAD

Artist The Alternative Press

Artist Allan Kornblum

Date1981

MediumLetterpress on paper

DimensionsPaper Size: 10 1/2 × 7 in. (26.7 × 17.8 cm)

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineGift of Gary Eleinko, 2023

Object numberUAC7447.05

DescriptionLetterpress printed poem by Allan Kornblum, titled "WORDS In My HEAD".

WORDS In My HEAD

Often, I write only in my head.
The words seem empty like sausage skins
Once letters string across the page.

O distracting alphabet, each letter
A Chinese lantern blown about by a breeze
As our host bids us goodbye.

Goodbye Grandma Wormley.
I tried to say "the right thing"
When you suddenly blurted

"Old people are such a nuisance."
Then I wrote you a poem in my head.
Was it better left there, unsaid?

Hello Dad, my last link with existence
Now that my mother, your wife of
Thirty-three years is dead.

You wanted a poem when you and lovely Gerry
Married, so did I. But the words to be said,
Those words just stayed in my head.

Soon I will be 28. By the end
Of every 7 years, all the molecules
in a person's body have been replaced.

I will begin the fifth me. Impossible
To imagine the first me, conceived
You say, in Atlantic City.

Molecules linked up like letters
Becoming words, like summer sausage
Became this sandwich in winter

In my mouth then down my throat
And by tomorrow night lying with me
In my bed, writing poems in my head.

Published by The Alternative Press, Issue Number 10.